Are You Lonesome Tonight? (Assignment 1 for Poetry)

The kind of car that made people stop and stare:
It wasn’t a family car, you could tell
From the engine revving, the sleekness of its candy apple red body,
Its t-tops, slid back from the roof, the sight of it would sting
your eyes with jealousy, a Stingray. It was the kind
You would expect young women to let their hair
Go flying through the wind, but you could match their beauty with its name:
Corvette. How do you fit a family of four into a 1972 corvette?
Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, our family.

You couldn’t convince my dad not to show off: the car, not our family.
When he was around, we ignored our problems
Like we thought that if we didn’t talk about them that they did not exist.
I got to be the unlucky one cramped behind the black leather seats
Creased with age, sticky in the summer heat—I was stored away like
unwanted luggage... how fitting. Elvis screamed in my ear
compensating against the wind and the roar of the engine
‘Honey you lied when you said you loved me
And I had no cause to doubt you.’
The space was about four feet long and two feet wide,
Half already taken up from the speakers pounding in my ears…
but I was a small girl at age twelve.
My mom got shotgun placed beside the throne, and my sister claimed her lap
as the true heir.
My dad drove us crazy controlling our emotions with just his presence...
and the car. 
He loved every minute of it, he was so tall, his head stuck partially
Out of the roof- it only let him feel the wind through his curly hair even more.
Denial was the forte of our family, we had everything but one another.
This car reflected every word that came out of the speakers,
Elvis’s deep voice carrying us back in time—an oldie but a goodie.

Though the wind didn’t reach behind the seats and ruffle my hair,
I got the best view, Elvis was my soundtrack to the slideshow before me
The clouds danced to the words pounding in my brain, the trees
Stuck out their branches trying to eat the cotton candy sky.
The wheels were so close to where I lay down,
Their strength vibrated the floor.
I would always fall asleep, the car was so powerful,
When my dad changed gears, it would rock me
and roll me.  Rock and roll,
Elvis was and will forever be The King. Nothing else mattered, my dad would laugh.
We lied through our teeth, smiling at one another, reeking of imperfection,
My dad the ring leader in our little circus show, driving around...
I looked just like him then.
‘But I’d rather go on hearing your lies than to go on
Living without you.’
All our problems lie behind the seats with me… but I resisted their gravity
I floated away to sleep in my denial, things would be okay.